‘Police Officers Broke My Son’s Leg’, Mother Claims

A Mother from south London has claimed that her 17-year-old son’s leg was broken by police officers in Peckham.

Novelette Williams, from Brockley in south London, said she is now seeking legal advice after her son, Winston White, was left with two fractures on his right foot after an encounter with the officers on June 20.

Williams said her son and a friend saw the police while returning from a 3.45am trip to buy food at McDonalds on Old Kent Road, south London.

“They were walking towards a bike that his friend has there (and) saw the police. He didn’t want to stop because he always runs from the police because he says he’s petrified of them,” Winston’s mother said.

“He said he ran off and then he stopped and held up his hand. He said a police officer put his hand around his neck and about seven more of them jumped down on him. When he fell, his foot twisted and then he heard a sound ‘Pow’,” she continued.

Injury

But Willimas claimed officers at first refused to believe her son when he told them he was injured.

“They said ‘no no mate, your foot is not broken. Maybe it’s just a little bit bent but it is not broken” she said recounting what her son told her of the incident.

“They only believed what Winston was saying – and called an ambulance – after he showed them how different his now injured right foot was from his other foot,” Williams alleged.

Hospital

An ambulance took the teenager to King’s College hospital in south London. Discharge documents show Winston was admitted for foot injuries, including a fractured right ankle.

The distraught mother also complained that police did not inform her about what happened to Winston, who lives in a hostel, leaving her anxious and concerned when she did not get an answer from his mobile phone.

Williams said she found out about her son’s injury after a friend, who went to the hospital to collect a relative, saw him there and alerted her.

She added: “I was really upset with what the police had done because my son had told me that he gave them my number.”

Williams is also angry that the police officers involved allegedly seized her son’s clothes and shoes and left him nearly naked in the hospital.

She said: “They took my son’s clothes out of the hospital. My son woke up only in his boxer shorts. I had to take clothes for him. He didn’t have any shoes so he had to walk in the socks – and rain was falling – to the cab.”

The police have acknowledged that one of two youths was injured when police arrested them after they were seen near a scooter that was reported stolen.

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